


Inheritance

by restlesslikeme



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Corporate, M/M, Mortal AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlesslikeme/pseuds/restlesslikeme
Summary: Loki watches Odin clasp a hand over his heir's shoulder. Watches as Odin puts his pride and joy on display, his most glorious triumph, his greatest trophy. He watches them mingle with purpose, father and son, and he stays to the side as he always has, seventeen years old and full of quiet fury and vicious plans, and patience. Always patience.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts for... more than four years at this point. So! I've hashed it over and edited it and it still isn't complete where I wanted it to be when I started writing it, but as I don't have much insp. for Marvel anymore it's getting published today. Hopefully someone out there will like it!
> 
> Warnings for fauxcest (though that should go without saying if you're in the ship tag anyway), references to emotionally abusive parenting, one instance of parent-on-(adult) child physical violence, and manipulation. 
> 
> Some sort of corporate-royalty au.

 

 

 

"One day," Odin tells Thor, "Everything here will be under your control. Everything i have is yours."

 

Thor grins, all arrogance and golden entitlement and his mouth is as wide as the horizon. His clothes are rumpled already, unable to keep tidy even for the hour before a gala. His tie is deep red, like blood.

 

"Yes, father," he says.

 

Odin smiles down on him, and behind them, Loki folds his hands at his back, suit jacket pressed straight and clean.

 

He is patient.

 

\--

 

Destiny is a privilege and not a right. Loki learns this early on.

 

"Will I help Thor run things?"

 

Odin laughs, glass eye staring out as dead as ever. Loki is nine years old and he's quickly discovering the difference between tolerance and affection.

 

"It's not your place, Loki" he replies.

 

It isn't until years later that he'll realize nobody ever told him where his place was.

 

He spends his days in the giant library, reading old books that are mostly as ignored and forgotten as he feels, stories about old gods and fairies and women that live in the water and sing sailors to their death. He reads stories about heroes and villains and wars fought behind closed doors as well as on the field, and at night he goes back to the room he shares with his brother.

 

“I tried to find you today,” Thor says, frowning, pushing himself up in his bed. “There was a caterpillar as big as my _hand_ ,” he grins widely, holding his palm up to demonstrate. “I looked but I couldn’t find you to show you and then father yelled at me for being inside so I had to stop.” Thor looks at him, shakes hair away from his face. “I can never find you when I need you.”

 

Loki ignores him, drawing the covers up over his shoulders, and turns his back.

 

“Go to sleep, Thor,” he whispers. “You can show me tomorrow.”

 

\--

 

"I love you more than I've ever loved anything."

 

They're fifteen, though already Thor towers over Loki, his hands huge and firm, his hair falling in his eyes. Thor's voice is fierce for all its youth, like a blood oath or a battle cry, and it rings through Loki’s head clear even as it aches through his bones. _Thor_ is fierce. Everything he does he does with feeling and conviction.

"More than mother and father?" Loki asks.

 

"Yes."

 

Loki closes his eyes, and sighs. He feels older than he is, and certainly older than Thor, who has almost a whole year on him.

 

"You're supposed to love me, idiot. I'm your brother."

 

The silence that follows is uncharacteristic of Thor, denotes that for once his brother doesn’t have his footing. It tells Loki that he's found himself a weapon, and he tucks it away, moving to rest his fingers over his brother’s knuckles.

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says quietly.

 

They lie together in silence, the gears in Loki’s head turning, until Frigga calls them inside for dinner.

 

 

\--

 

 

Years come and go. Thor gets taller, broader, and for every inch of space he takes up, Loki does the opposite; closing in on himself. There’s talk of boarding school that makes the blood in Loki’s veins burn like acid, that sends him into a frenzy because the thought of being _hidden away_ ; of being forgotten, while Thor would get to stay and continue on with his lessons at home, well.

 

He screams until it feels like his lungs are raw, smashes an antique vase against the wallpaper next to his adopted father’s head, spits and snarls and curses as if something’s come unhinged until Thor picks him up around the middle and carries him away to the other side of the house, still yelling obscenities over his shoulder.

 

“I’m sorry Loki,” he says, while Loki pants and paces, his mind still racing. “I’m sorry brother.”

 

He regrets it later, of course, the way he always does. Regrets how _stupid_ it was to give into a fit of rage instead of waiting, keeping himself in check, biding his time.

 

Thor is careful around him for a few days afterward, though Loki has noticed a lot more of that lately. Aborted sentences and movements. Ghosts of touches. It doesn’t matter anyways- the next week he’s on a plane and the rest of the year is spent in some dingy school on some godforsaken countryside.

 

There's a party on Thor’s eighteenth birthday to celebrate his coming of age, by which time Loki is home permanently, having been expelled from the school on account of various chaotic offenses. It's him who helps Thor pick out his suit, who fastens his cuff links and straightens his tie. Purposefully, he runs his fingers over the the lapels of Thor's jacket, watching.

 

"How do I look?" Thor asks. For once he doesn't sound so sure of himself, and oh how Loki loves him. Oh how he loves the damage he'll do.

 

"Like the crown prince of Odincorp," he drawls, and Thor laughs. “Daddy dearest will be oh so happy.”

 

Thor says, "When I'm CEO, I'll bring you on with me. As my main advisor," and this time it's Loki who laughs.

 

 

\--

 

 

Loki watches Odin clasp a hand over his heir's shoulder. Watches as Odin puts his pride and joy on display, his most glorious triumph, his greatest trophy. He watches them mingle with purpose, father and son, and he stays to the side as he always has, seventeen years old and full of quiet fury and vicious plans, and patience. Always patience.

 

 _I'll tear your heart out of your chest_ , he thinks.

 

From the other side of the room, Thor's eyes find him and he smiles.

 

 

\--

 

 

Thor attends board meetings that Loki isn’t privy to. He talks investments and does press, has a team to carve him into the face of a corporation. His arrogance is taken for confidence and the likeability and charisma that has always been his gift is carefully highlighted with pointed questions and camera angles.

 

He’s as beloved as he’s always been.

 

Loki arms himself with his environment; his disgrace is a match waiting to be struck, ready to burn down the empire. Thor’s love is a length of rope and with it he intends hang Odin from the rafters.

 

“You have to stay with me, Thor” he says, and it tastes like silver behind his teeth. “I _need_ you.”

 

He runs his fingers through his brother’s golden hair, twines the strands together in a braid with Thor’s head in his lap.

 

“I need you too,” Thor says, turning his face to rest against Loki’s thigh. The gesture isn’t totally unexpected, but just for a moment Loki allows himself to feel something like tenderness for his brother- tenderness edged with the desperate, sick sort of frustration he feels anytime he tries to think about Thor as anything but a means to an end.

 

“I’ll always stay with you,” Thor says, quiet and serious. “I promise.”

 

 

\--

 

 

Loki gets to work. Thor has the face of a company but Loki has the wits, and very slowly he begins to chip away at the throne of money and power his father rests so comfortably upon. It turns out that Odincorp’s investors’ loyalties aren’t deeper than their unfillable bank accounts, which is unsurprising. With them he whispers and he deals and he bribes, all cool smiles and firm handshakes.

 

And so the technicalities are taken care of, and what’s left is Thor.

 

If the loss of the company is what brings his father to his knees, then the golden son’s betrayal will be the final bloody kick in the teeth.

 

At night Thor finds his way to Loki’s room more often than not, these days. He eats in bed, which is irritating, and laughs too loudly watching tv, but Loki allows it. He allows the fleeting touches that Thor can’t ever seem to follow through on- a brush of knuckles along his jaw, an ankle hooked over his calf. It’s important that he keeps Thor devout. It’s important to indulge his need for love and validation in small doses. This is what he tells himself. Thor laughs at something on the television and he only has to work a little bit to bite back a smile at the sound of it.

 

He works away at the little allegiance Thor still has to his father. Slowly but surely, he begins to come around.

 

“You said you’d stay with me,” he murmurs, Thor’s fingertips tracing the lines on the inside of his palm. “Did you mean that? You’re all I have, Thor. We only have each other.”

 

And Thor nods.

 

 

\--

 

 

Thor looks good at the end of the sleek glass table, his suit fitted, his hair tied back. He barely speaks throughout the entire board meeting, letting Loki take command, happy to rest his hand on his brother’s thigh where no one can see. He signs what he needs to in order to finalize everything.

 

“It’s ours now,” Loki tells him afterwards. They’re alone in the conference room, overlooking the glittering city below them, and Loki has never felt more in place. He’s never felt more justified. He feels like something has been cracked open above him to let the light in, like his righteous anger has finally, finally started to burn the shame off his skin.

 

“You can have anything you’ve ever wanted, and no one will stop you,” his voice is trembling, low and dangerous while he watches Thor stare out the window. “By this time tomorrow, Odin will have nothing left,” he grins sharply, putting a hand on Thor’s back. “He’ll have nothing, and you can have _anything_.”

 

The smile that flits across Thor’s lips isn’t the one that Loki is used to. There’s nothing grand or open about it. Instead it looks more like an ache, and Thor shakes his head.

 

“Not anything,” he says quietly. He presses his lips gently to the side of Loki’s head before he moves to exit the conference room.

 

“Is that what you think?” The words seem abrupt and sharp in the quiet of the room. Loki watches his brother pause at the doorway, watches the tension in the line of Thor’s back.

 

“It isn’t true,” Loki continues, his voice softening. “Perhaps it was once, but now -”

 

“There’s a car waiting outside.

 

 

\--

 

 

 

Thor’s kisses are the ends of sentences he never got to finish, his hands move along the planes of Loki’s hips and back like he means to find something he’s been looking for for ages. Maybe he has. Loki forgets where he stops and Thor starts and he thinks that they’ve always worked like this, in tandem, as a system, as two interlocking opposite pieces. When Thor gets restless Loki pushes him onto his back and takes his turn pressing his brother’s hands above his head.

 

“There’s no me without you,” Loki says, digging his nails into Thor’s stomach and listening to him groan. He means it this time. There’s no embellishment, no romance to it. Even if it grates at him, at least he understands it now. Understands the fundamental truth of their existence. In time, maybe, he’ll come to accept it. For now he bites down on Thor’s shoulder and takes pleasure in the angry red mark it leaves.

 

“I need you,” Thor replies, breathless, ragged. His hair is sticking to his cheek. “I need you,” and then with as much fervor: “I want you.”

 

Thor is a force of nature. When he finally settles, Loki lies next to him and watches his face, watches the way his chest rises and falls with his even breath.

 

“Anything,” Loki whispers later, “I told you you could have anything.”

 

 

\--

 

 

There’s a story about it the next night on the news. It’s sensationalist bullshit, but it’s perfect. At the press conference, Loki ducks his head and hunches his shoulders, plays his part of maligned, abused son to a T while Thor makes clipped, somber comments about their father, about a toxic family environment, about what the takeover means for the company. It doesn’t matter which parts are true and which aren’t, what matters is that he believes it, and so everyone else does too.

 

When Odin’s hand makes contact with Loki’s face, he feels an incredible sense of stillness come over him. The rage in his blood cools, hardens, just for a moment. Barely long enough for him to catch his breath before it will all rush back, and then-

 

It’s Thor who snaps, who breaks the beat like a storm, who catches Loki’s movement and follows through like he was meant to do it. Like he’s been doing it his whole life. It makes sense, his brother painted in fury and thunder and shared vindication and suddenly, with Thor’s hands around their father’s throat, it all comes together like a vision. Loki starts to smile.

 

“You won’t hurt us anymore,” Thor says, words precise, voice deep. His grip never falters, though Loki senses that he’s waiting, strung tight. From where he’s pinned to the wall, Odin stares back, glass eye lifeless and cold, the other gleaming. “If you ever think to lay a hand on him again I will kill you. I will.” Loki doesn’t move, just watches, holds his tongue.

“You think he’s something he’s not,” Odin rasps, struggling for breath. “You’re better off without him. He’s never been anything like us; and you, idiot that you always have been, let him twist himself up in your head and move you around like a puppet. You think he’s a kicked dog when he’s really a snake.”

 

There’s no lightning in Thor’s eyes now, no confusion or doubt or misplaced anger, nothing but absolute understanding, absolute self possession, and like a punch to the gut, Loki realizes that he’s misjudged him. That he, like everyone else, has been underestimating Thor since the very beginning.

 

“I know precisely everything that Loki is,” Thor replies calmly, and all at once Loki knows that this is true.

 

Odin leaves with a bloody nose; without his pride, without his empire, without his power.

 

Loki leaves hand in hand with the sun.


End file.
